Life After Him
by numbandalone
Summary: Bella's life after Edward leaves. What happens during the skipped time in the book? What will happen when a new person enters Bella's life from her past? *Stephanie Meyer owns all characters except Greg* please R&R!
1. What Life is Like

'If this is life then I would willingly give mine up.' The hole in her chest began to relax and not throb as much as the blood ran down her arm. 'If this is life without him I WILL give mine up, just not yet' she sat in the school stall letting the new pain fill her until she couldn't remember why there were tears in her eyes. 'If this is how life will be maybe I can survive' she looked at her arm a fresh cut running across it. She took the toilet paper she held and shoved it against her arm causing it to flare up in pain. She slide the band-aid out of her purse, quickly put it on, and pulled down first her shirtsleeve then her red sweatshirt sleeve. It had been three days and for the first time she was not paralyzed with the anger and the hole in her chest did not hurt, for the first time she could breathe deeply and freely and not start crying. She shredded the band-aid wrapper and flushed it along with the bloody toilet paper. For a second she thought of throwing razor down the drain too but before she knew it, the small razor blade was back in her purse with its protective covering on it. 'Just in case' she thought 'Just in case.'


	2. The First Cut is the Deepest

School sucked, the drive home sucked, being home sucked, homework sucked. Well it didn't exactly suck as much as it didn't do anything. She finished the day, sulked out to her truck, drove home (without music as usual), started dinner, and did homework at the table as she awaited Charlie's arrival home. Therefore, over all life sucked because of nothing truly sucking.

"Yum, something smells good!" Charlie said cheerfully from the front hall. Bella quickly pulled her sleeves down and winced appreciating the sudden pain it caused. "Hi sweet heart!" Charlie said as he planted a kiss on his daughter's head. "How was school?"

'Well Charlie today I tried something new to dull the pain, it's called cutting.' Bella almost laughed at the sound of the words in her head. As if she really needed help in injuring herself on top of her clumsiness and like she really needed Charlie on her case about this. "Fine," were the only words she could mumble out without lying to Charlie.

No one spoke as she served up the spaghetti she had made. They both sat in silence as Charlie devoured his and Bella pushed hers around her plate not feeling hungry. Charlie finished stood up, cleared his place and went to watch ESPN. Bella stood up and when she was sure Charlie was settled in pulled her sleeves up to do the dishes. She did her homework and went up stairs to bed.

Thinking of the previous nights, she pulled on a long sleeve tee shirt and the sweat pants she had gotten and cut off one leg last spring to fit with her cast. Just the thought of last spring brought shoot pains through her chest. She crawled into bed glancing at the clock. Eight pm. God her new life style made the nights way to long, but staying awake would not help anything. She grabbed a hold of her teddy bear Charlie had gotten her when she was in the hospital last spring, and shoved it into her mouth hoping to stifle some of the screams that would undoubtedly issue from her mouth during the nights.

She heard Charlie walk to the kitchen, no doubt to get some ice cream and beer. She heard him pause as he walked past the stairs, probably waiting for the one of two things. The more likely sounds of screaming or the thing he had wished would come back the sound of music. Ever since HE had left, music was a clearly absent part of Bella's life. Granted she had never been a music geek or anything but at night there had always been music. Bella had changed and Charlie had noticed. Bella winced again as her anger at herself for letting on to Charlie her hurt lead her to punch the wall with her arm. Charlie moved back to ESPN as he had heard no unusual noises and put up the footstool on his oversized recliner.

For the first time since she was six and had gotten lost in the woods around the house Bella felt the overwhelming urge to go sit in Charlie's lap and fall asleep. Somehow, she fought the urge and lay there until she lost consciousness.


	3. Nightmares

The wind whipped through her hair as she walked through the woods towards her destination. A place of hope, love, and joy. She knew it was up ahead but every time she thought it was right there she broke through the brush to discover just more trees. It was getting dark at an increasingly fast rate, she had only been out here for two maybe three hours how could it already be so dark. She had the feeling that if she could just find it she would somehow turn back the clock; bring back the sun, both the actual sun and her own personal sun. In the dark sounds that would have before meant nothing made her jump. The snapping of a twig beneath her feet was the sound of an earthquake rumbling, threatening to swallow her whole. Her exhaustion added to her fear and caused her to feel exasperated. She stumbled and tripped as she started to move quicker, racing the sun. Tears began to form in the corners of her eyes only adding to her clumsiness. She heaved and sobbed as she finally broke through the next layer of brush to finally discover The Meadow. Only it was not her meadow where she had spent endless hours contemplating and examining every inch of him. Every glorious expression, every moody frown and crooked grin. Every second of the sun shining off his marble like skin.

No, this was not her meadow. It was a wilder less predictable meadow that brushed at her with rippling dead grass. Suddenly the grass began to wind itself around her arms and legs pulling her into it not allowing her to leave. She struggled the only thought on her mind was 'Charlie' she had promised to not do anything stupid or dangerous because of Charlie. She pulled harder to free herself but with every tug, she gave the grass tugged just a little bit harder. She was drowning in it she could hear a sound more animal than human and tried even harder to get out. She cried and kicked waiting for the animal to strike think only of Charlie. She tried to scream but could not find it in herself to scream. She was drowning and she would never see Charlie again.

All of a sudden, she felt arms around her and a soft voice calling her name, "Bells, Bells please! Honey wake up!" She was shook awake to find that the sound she had thought was an animal was actually her and the strong loving arms of Charlie replaced the grass. The soft voice replaced by her father's gruff one, but the message was the same. "Bells honey please wake up. I love you. Everything's going to be alright." She lurched into full consciousness and once again started to cry. How could he do it? How could with one single sentence could Charlie both tell her what she wanted to hear more than anything and still lie straight to her face. NOTHING would be all right, she had come to understand that, but that one truth was the one thing she did not want to be true.

"Charlie," she croaked. "Charlie, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." She cried wanting only to sleep one night straight through only so that Charlie did not have to suffer. She knew how much panic she brought him when he was startled awake by her screams of anguish in the idle of the night. She knew he would not sleep again tonight and it only made the tears come thicker and more steadily. He sat there on her bed with his arm around. He shushed and tried his hardest to comfort her. To save her from the fear that engulfed her but he had no clue how deep the torment went. She eventually fell back asleep and Charlie sat in the rocking chair that had been in her room since the time she had been born. He rocked keeping himself awake not daring to fall asleep for fear that, she would once again need him and he would be trapped in his own nightmares. Bella's nightmares had brought back his own that had haunted him over the last fourteen years.


	4. Charlie

The nightmares had come slowly at first just twinges of dread that he felt when he closed his eyes. Renee had never been the small town type but the betrayal had still hit him hard. He found himself dreading sleep even skipping it when possible. He started staying up late watching baseball and drinking. The house was too big and the wind howled through it as the dread howled in his heart. She had left and behind her were the remains of his once happy life. Pictures, home videos, and the crib were the only true remains of that life where he could do no wrong, where he was a super hero and his daughter had always needed him.

They started on Bella's birthday of that first year alone. It was simple and not truly very terrifying but the fear came from the sense of hopelessness he was filled with. The dream consisted of four things: the front hall ever growing longer, Renee walking out the door holding Bella by the hand, his own tears stinging as they rolled down his face, and his feet being super glued to the floor. Unable to move, unable to do anything about his situation the nightmare was one he had experienced many times in real life, only this time it was his life he was unable to do anything about. As a cop, he had come to understand that you cannot save everyone every time, but never in a million years would he have thought that he could not save his own marriage.

Every night for those first two years, if he left himself drift off, Charlie would wake up screaming and sweating. He was not coping and he knew it. Charlie had finally broken down and had the guts to set up a meeting with a therapist when Renee contacted him. A simple note showed up at the house one day all it said was "Charlie we need to talk, Bella misses you and I'm sure you miss her. Here is my new number. I'm sure you hate me and never want to speak to me again but please for Bella, call," with the number written across the bottom. It had taken him a full week before he responded.

"Hello? Yeah Renee it's me. Yeah, uh uh? Really? Well I'm happy for you, talk to you soon," all Charlie had said the first time he talked to her. That night the nightmare was worse. He woke up screaming as Renee played keep away with him keeping his daughter as the target. It was another week before he they spoke again, this time she called him.

"Charlie?" she asked. "Maybe Bella should come spend some time with you?" He had been shocked; Renee the woman who had left because "If she didn't get out now she would never get out!" wanted to send Bella here to the town Renee hated. Charlie of course accepted Bella coming with great excitement and they decided that she would come during the summer so that it wouldn't mess with school. Charlie looked forward to June and the nightmares had slowly crept away.

June came and the nightmares came back. He found himself not fully trusting Renee to be able to get on the plane to bring Bella. They got worse as the 24th drew nearer until they got so bad the week leading up to their arrival that he could not sleep from fear of them.

Yes, he knew the pain, fear, and betrayal his daughter was feeling. He knew for a fact that those nightmares would never fully leave her, just as they had never fully left him.


	5. Noticeable Habits

Walking down the hall to the girl's bathroom at school was becoming a rather noticeable habit of Bella's at the beginning of lunch. She would move into the bathroom gliding like a shadow or ghost and would emerge five minutes later noticeably more pleasant and conversational.

It had been two months since _They_ had all left and for the most part the hole seemed to have closed but there were certain things that ripped it back open. Once while having a girl's night out to get Charlie off her back she could have sworn she had seen Alice flitting around a store they walked past. Another time driving up to the store to get groceries she did a double take at a couple that seconds before had been Rosalie and Emmett. The worst was when she woke up in a cold sweat to find Him sitting in the chair watching her sleep as He always had only to start screaming and be woken up for real by Charlie shaking her shoulders.

Today in third period she had opened her notebook to a new page to discover a note Alice had written about a slumber party they had been planning. The very sight of Alice's perfect, slanted writing on the paper had sent her into a tail spin where she had to be escorted to the nurse's office when her silent hyperventilating had caused her to pass out and hit her head on the desk behind her.

She enter the bathroom stall, quickly and silently pulled up the sleeve of her tight fitting, black, long sleeve shirt to reveal six perfectly parallel cuts, each about three inches long, running across her wrist. She pulled her razor from its hiding spot in the sole of her shoe and steadily, breathing deeply to avoid a gasp, created a seventh uniform line across her arm. She sat there reveling in the distraction from the emotional pain she had been feeling so deeply since the discovery of the note. After five minutes of wiping and blotting the cut clotted allowing her to gauze and tape it, pull down her sleeve, replace the blade, and leave the bathroom.

She had made a lot of stupid decisions in the last few weeks to show people that she was coping, including but not limited to, "dating" Mike. He and Jessica had split when her dad got a job out of state so her family moved and everyone was aware of Mike's feelings for Bella. So it had made sense when Charlie had subtly hinted that maybe she should start hanging out with guys that Bella would go with Mike.

They had been on one actual date and the rest of the time Bella pretended he wasn't Mike but a certain person she still wouldn't call by name. And Mike, unaware he was walking around looking like the one person he hated to the one person he wanted, was thrilled by Bella's sudden interest in him.

He was waiting for her outside the bathroom, knowing her routine, including what she was doing in the bathroom, he waited for her every day. "Hey babe," he said bending down a little to give her a huge kiss. She ran her fingers through his hair pretending the tongue down her throat was cold and hard. He pulled back, put his arm around her waist and they started walking in the direction of their group, sitting outside at their usual picnic table.

Angela, finishing telling the group about third period and Bella passing out, looked relieved and squealed slightly seeing Bella walking toward her. "Bella I was just telling them what happened. Are you okay? What happened? What did the nurse say? You look really pale, like even for you pale. You probably just need something to eat huh?" Bella didn't have time between Angela's questions to answer.

"Oh that," Bella said playing it down, "it was nothing, I just over slept this morning so I didn't have breakfast so I was light headed from hunger and passed out. I'm fine the nurse gave me a granola bar and just made me sit there for a while to make sure I didn't pass out again and to check out my head. Lauren that top is so cute, is it new?" concluded Bella making sure to point out something about Lauren who would then control the conversation and not focus on Bella. Bella and Lauren had never gotten along but ever since Bella had begun pretending to be fine she had made an effort to compliment Lauren a lot as an easy conversation divergent.

Bella spent the rest of lunch sitting next to Mike not really listening but she noticed Mike had slipped his hand on to her leg fairly close to her crotch. When the bell signaling the end of lunch rang Bella thanked God in her head. She once again pretended to be kissing someone other than Mike as he pressed against her at her locker before running off to class. All and all it was turning into a rather strange but typical day.

School ended and Bella stood almost frozen as she tried to remember what she needed to take home for the weekend when Mike, Angela, Lauren, Eric, and Tyler all came over to her locker and started talking about the weekend and what it held in store.

"You're coming right Bella?" Angela asked snapping Bella out of her trace like state.

"Coming? Coming to what?" she asked having missed the whole conversation.

"La Push, only the biggest party of the year Bella, come on we've been planning on this for two weeks, don't back out on us now!" Mike said reaching out to tuck her hair behind her ear.

"No, yeah, La Push, I just was thinking about something else. I'll be there," she said forcing the fake smile she had been fronting for months to her face.

"It's gonna be epic, last year there were like at least 4 kegs, this is going to be the greatest weekend ever!" Tyler said happily his hand resting on Lauren's lower back as he checked out his girlfriend's short skirt, she had been hiking it up in little increments all day.

"You a drinker or a driver Bella?" Angela asked looking slightly hopeful, she had volunteered for DDing when the party had first come up, she and Bella had also planned on a slumber party 1) to get Charlie off Bella's back, 2)to keep Charlie AKA Police Chief Swan from finding out about the party and 3) because Angela's parents were out of town for the weekend.

"Depends on what kind of mood I'm in," she said jokingly, she had never had a drink before, well not anything more than a sip of wine at family occasions once or twice, she didn't even know if she liked beer, she hadn't been a big fan of the wine and really how different could they be?

"Well I plan on getting smashed," Mike said suddenly before leaning in and kissing Bella unexpectedly, she didn't have time to prepare and she was all too aware that it was Mike she was kissing not…him.

He stepped back and slung his bag over his shoulder before grabbing hers and shutting her locker. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and led her along with the rest of the group out to the parking lot. Charlie had made a new rule, which Bella was eternally grateful for, which said very clearly that Mike was only allowed in the house when Charlie was home and awake, so after getting in the right mindset and letting Mike kiss her for a few minutes Bella climbed into her truck and drove off toward her house, and Mike climbed into his car and took off in the opposite direction.

Charlie's cruiser was parked out front, he never beat her home, so she knew whatever had happened it was serious. Another car was parked out front that she had never seen before.

She braced herself, pulling her sleeves down further self-consciously, before climbing out of the truck and crossing the front yard to the three steps that led to their front door. She forced the smile back to her lips and prepared herself mentally as she opened the door and her voice rang out happily, but hollow, "Charlie? I'm home!" and she hung up her coat and dropped her book bag next to the bench at the front door.

"Bells, in here," Charlie's rough voice called from the living room, the television wasn't on and the other voice went dead upon Charlie calling her.

She took a deep breath, who knew who was in the other room, it could be anyone really, what was the worst it could be? After all she had gone through in the past few months, nothing could get to her that she couldn't handle.

"Hey Charlie, who's here?" she asked casually as she turned the corner and saw someone she couldn't have been more surprised to see in her entire life.

"Greg?" she demanded her jaw practically dropping. "What," she looked at her dad slightly worried, "What are you doing here?" she demanded.


End file.
